


You're What?

by fantasyseal



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Communication, Crushes, Dancing, Ice Skating, Light Angst, M/M, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9557288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasyseal/pseuds/fantasyseal
Summary: The time the volleyboys go ice skating, and Tsukishima Kei's life gets a little more complicated.Or, 'the result of a whole bunch of headcanon that's been sitting mostly-finished in my drafts for ages.'





	1. Skating

_“Ow.”_

“Tsukki!” He can hear laughter held back as Yamaguchi crouches and offers him a hand. “Here, let me help you to the rail…”

“I’m taking a break,” Tsukishima mutters. He’d spent five minutes tying his skates just to avoid this, and now that he’s finally out on the ice, he’d managed a grand total of ten seconds. Literally. He was counting. Ten seconds of trying to find his balance and realizing that he isn’t as balanced as he thinks and careening to the center of the rink and feeling his feet slip out from under him. His height may be an asset in volleyball, but on the ice, being long-limbed and still growing just means that he has absolutely no idea how to handle balancing on knives on a floor that’s suddenly gone _slippery._

“Let me help you to the exit, then,” Yamaguchi says, giving Tsukishima his brightest puppy-dog smile, the one reserved just for Tsukishima.

Tsukishima sticks his hand out, and Yamaguchi smiles again and takes it and steadies him all the way over to the rink exit. “There,” he says. “Come back in when you feel up to it, okay?”

“Yeah.” It’s just a mutter, but Yamaguchi grins like it’s a promise, like he didn’t just avoid actually saying he would, and skates back in, and Tsukishima watches his teammates in the rink.

_Let’s go ice skating, Tsukishima. It’ll be fun, Tsukishima. We need to relax after Shiratorizawa, Tsukishima. Yes, Tsukishima, you have to come. Yamaguchi, make sure he’s there, please._

Tsukishima decides that watching his teammates fall is far more entertaining than actually skating, so he props his chin on his hands and starts trying to spot them among the crowd.

Nishinoya’s not hard to find; he’s falling over about once every thirty seconds because he’s too proud to admit that he can’t skate. (Also, he’s showing off and trying moves that are probably going to end in a sprained ankle.) Tanaka’s punctuating Nishinoya’s efforts with loud whoops and groans when he falls. Asahi is on the rail, calling to Nishinoya to _please be careful,_ and Daichi and Suga are skating slowly around keeping one eye on their underclassmen like good captains.

Hinata, after a few falls, is clinging to the rail, yelling at Kageyama for being better than him. Kageyama is clearly struggling to maintain his balance; he’s skating backward, alternately checking behind him and throwing insults at Hinata. Standard operating procedure for the two morons, then.

And then Tsukishima gets his first decent look at Yamaguchi and discovers that his entire universe is built on a lie.

Yamaguchi is clumsy. It’s a fact. He hits serves into the net, misses receives, and trips over his own too-big feet. Tsukishima used to rescue him from bullies all the time; it’s increasingly less of a problem as they get older (and as he gets better at his float serve, Tsukishima’s noticed), but he still does, occasionally. It’s the way the world is; Yamaguchi needs Tsukishima to help him back up when he falls.

Except Yamaguchi is gliding along with a little smile on his face, perfectly balanced. He isn’t showing off like Nishinoya is trying to, but he also isn’t faceplanting on the ice like Tsukishima would expect him to. Tsukishima watches him skate to a stop and talk to Hinata, gesturing above his head; Hinata nods and says something back and pushes off the rail. He’s moving at approximately the speed of an elderly snail, and his face has the irritating look it gets during matches on it, but he isn’t falling.

Yamaguchi smiles and takes off again; even in his ridiculous puffy winter coat and pom-pom-covered blue hat that his hair sticks out of, there’s a presence to him that Tsukishima’s never seen on the court. He carries himself so _differently;_ this Yamaguchi doesn’t need Tsukishima to hold his hand, doesn’t need anyone to help him up.

This Yamaguchi carries himself like he’s the team ace and not a pinch server who’s stuck on the bench cheering most of the time.

“Tsukki!” Tsukishima jumps; Yamaguchi’s next to him, flushed red from the cold. “Do you want to go back in?”

No; he wants to ask Yamaguchi where he learned to skate, how long he’s been skating, and how long has he managed to not notice.

“Here,” Yamaguchi says, drawing himself up (he seems taller when Tsukishima’s sitting). “You just kind of have to find your balance. If you pretend there’s a string coming out of the top of your head, like it’s connecting you to the ceiling, that helps. And you have to hold your core muscles together.”

Snarky comment? No, that’s for everyone else, not for Yamaguchi. A joke? He’s not actually sure he _can_ do a non-sarcastic joke. A compliment? No way; Yamaguchi will think he’s dying or something. (He could, possibly, stand to compliment Yamaguchi a little more often.)

“Thank you.” Tsukishima stands up, holding his arms out to keep his balance, and manages to get all the way to the ice without falling over. The string thing is surprisingly helpful, but he still grabs the rail as soon as he’s there.

“Good job, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, genuinely meaning it. He’s so damned _good_ at this; Tsukishima’s wobbly ten-foot walk to the rink should not be impressive, and neither should his slow shuffle along the edge of the ice.

He feels a gloved hand through his jacket; Yamaguchi’s gently adjusting his arm position, turning it into a curve. “Here,” he says, “if you use your shoulders too, it’s easier to stay upright, see?”

Easier it may be, but Tsukishima’s arm already hurts from trying to keep it positioned like this. Yamaguchi’s holding his out like it’s nothing, gliding along next to him.

Tsukishima has so many questions.

“Wave at me if you want me, okay, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, giving him the _sorry-Tsukki_ smile again and stroking off, his skates catching the light when he does.

Tsukishima has so many questions, and he didn’t get to ask any of them. He watches Yamaguchi skating his way across the ice, perfectly content and looking more comfortable than he ever does when they play together. Hinata skates up to him and nearly runs into him to ask how he’s doing something, and Yamaguchi laughs and stops to explain it.

Tsukishima tries to let go of the rail; he’s slow and still feels like he might fall, but he refuses to skate around the edge the whole time they’re here. He can handle this, apparently-nonexistent center of gravity be damned.

He actually gets moving pretty well, until he spots Yamaguchi doing a complicated little step with his skates and falls over again; after that, he stays close to the rail so he can grab it if he has to and skates carefully around the rink until Takeda and Ukai _finally_ call for them to get on the bus.

Yamaguchi’s asleep almost before the bus pulls out, head falling onto Tsukishima’s shoulder. He feels like an iceberg, even though he’s practically the only one who didn’t wind up falling at some point. (Asahi didn’t fall either, but that’s because he’d spent the entire time moving around the edge and ignoring Nishinoya’s calls to come out toward the middle.)

He’s tired, too; it’s been days since Shiratorizawa, and his legs had finally recovered before their esteemed faculty advisor had suggested _ice skating_. So he lets his head drop against Yamaguchi’s, using him as a pillow like they always wind up doing on long bus rides, and shuts his eyes.

_“What else do we need but pride?” Yamaguchi’s got tears in his eyes, but he’s still holding onto Tsukishima’s shirt with a death grip, shoving his face into Tsukishima’s to get his point across, and Tsukishima thinks back to the tiny freckled kid he’d met a thousand years ago who was crying because some kids who’d grown a few centimeters taller than him wouldn’t leave him alone._

Why do you put up with me? _he wonders on his way to ask Bokuto-san and Kuroo-san a question, remembering Yamaguchi’s disappearances to work on jump float serves, his constant pestering for Tsukishima to join the club with him, his face the first time he called Tsukishima “Tsukki” (his serves, before he’d put so much work into them, had been pretty awful, and he hadn’t quite realized in time that it was going to hit Tsukishima, and all he’d managed was “Watch out, Tsuki—“. Tsukishima still covers the back of his head when Yamaguchi serves out of sheer habit.)_

_“Tsukishima?” No, that isn’t right, he’s Tsukki. “Tsukishima?”_

“Yamaguchi?” he mumbles, and blinks his eyes open. Yamaguchi’s gone, and Suga is shaking his shoulder.

“Sorry, we’re back at Karasuno,” Suga says, smiling and offering Tsukishima his bag. Tsukishima grunts his thanks and takes his bag, only pausing long enough to note that the two idiots are asleep on each other’s shoulders and resolving to be long gone by the time they wake up.

So he waves to Yamaguchi, and they’re nearly off school grounds when they hear twin loud, indignant screeches splitting the calm of the afternoon. Tsukishima snorts. “There they are…”

Yamaguchi laughs, and Tsukishima looks sideways at him (okay, it’s more of a diagonal).

_Hey, how long have I completely failed to notice that you have a life outside of volleyball?_

_What are you doing playing volleyball when you obviously love skating?_

“What’s wrong?” Yamaguchi asks, tilting his head up.

Tsukishima fakes a yawn so Yamaguchi will know he’s just tired, not deliberately ignoring him. His head is still buzzing with questions that he swallows down, letting the silence stretch between them. This is how they always walk home, tired out from their day. They’re always quiet, but today Tsukishima finds that the silence is significantly less comfortable than usual.

“You’re a good skater.” Yamaguchi stops and looks up at him again. He has that smile again, the one Tsukishima privately refers to as the Tsukki-smile, because he’s never seen Yamaguchi smile like that for anything else.

“Thanks, Tsukki,” he says, not offering an explanation, just smiling and glowing the way he does on the rare occasions Tsukishima compliments him. He starts walking again, like this is a perfectly normal day.

“Do you compete?” There’s a world of unspoken questions in those three words; Tsukishima’s struggling to keep his tone under control. He manages ‘mildly curious’, which is good, really; perfectly neutral would tell Yamaguchi that something was wrong. He’s irritatingly good at reading Tsukishima’s voice.

Yamaguchi laughs and shakes his head. “I’m not a figure skater,” he says, smiling; not the Tsukki-smile anymore, this one’s closer to the one he wore when they were both in middle school and Yamaguchi stayed late to help the younger kids with fundamentals (which he was nearly as bad at). “I’m…just a volleyball player. Not a very good one, either.”

Tsukishima prides himself on his ability to read people, and Yamaguchi in particular is usually an open book. Right now, Yamaguchi’s lying. And he’s _never_ lied; he’s honest to a fault, especially to Tsukishima.

He’s stopped walking. Yamaguchi looks back and tilts his head sideways. _Are you okay, Tsukki?_

Yamaguchi doesn’t trust him enough to tell him why he’s so fucking amazing at ice skating.

 _Yamaguchi,_ his friend since their last year of elementary school, the reason he’d gone to Karasuno despite the whole Akiteru debacle, the boy he had to protect all through middle school, before he shot up and his shoulders broadened out enough to make people think twice about trying to push him over.

Yamaguchi’s still watching him with a gentle not-the-Tsukki-smile look on his face. “Come on, Tsukki,” he says, tugging Tsukishima along the road, “let’s go home.”

_“Come on, Tsukki, let’s go.”_

_He’s not really aware of leaving; Yamaguchi pulls him out of the gym, away from the tournament, away from Akiteru. He takes Tsukishima to his house and puts a blanket around his shoulders, and after some rattling in the kitchen, pushes a mug of hot chocolate into Tsukishima’s hands._

_Tsukishima blows on it and manages a little smile when he notices that it’s already stuffed with little tiny pastel marshmallows. “Thanks, Yamaguchi.”_

_Yamaguchi beams at him and blows on his own mug. He doesn’t press Tsukishima to talk about it; the two of them just sit in silence, stirring their hot chocolate and eating marshmallows from the bag._

_Tsukishima sleeps over, that night, and a few nights after that; Yamaguchi always greets him with a smile, a blanket, and a drink, and not once does he ask for an explanation. He stops once Akiteru goes away to university, and Yamaguchi never brings it up again._

_He persuades Tsukishima to go to Karasuno, join club volleyball again. ‘Persuades’ might be too gentle a word; he begs for weeks, refusing to leave Tsukishima alone, and they sit the entrance exam together. Yamaguchi’s so excited when they both pass with flying colors; he fills out the application for Tsukishima, handing it to him with only the blank for his signature left to write in and talking about how they’re going to play together again._

He hadn’t quite put together, at the time, that Yamaguchi was more excited about playing volleyball with him, specifically, than playing volleyball in general.

He’s usually proud of being an asshole, but.

Tsukishima’s head tilts to the side. “Why _do_ you put up with me?”

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, his expression morphing into the hot-chocolate face (the take-care-of-Tsukki face), and Tsukishima knows he could laugh it off and Yamaguchi would never question it, would just quietly worry until one of them explodes again.

_“What else do we need but pride?”_

No. That’s never happening again. Ever. Absolutely out of the question.

“I’ve known you since fifth grade,” Tsukishima says, “and I didn’t even realize you could skate.”

“I didn’t tell you,” Yamaguchi says, gently. “And I don’t skate. It’s not important, Tsukki, really.”

 _Why not,_ he wants to ask. Doesn’t Yamaguchi trust him enough to mention, at some point, volleyball isn’t actually his sport? Why does he even play volleyball? If it’s not important, it _could_ be; he’s definitely starting higher than he did with volleyball. Tsukishima remembers every messed-up serve, every botched receive, every awkward effort to spike before he finally got the timing down.

“It’s okay, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi’s looking up at him, like always (he’s _never_ in a thousand years going to catch up to Tsukishima), with his gentler smile on his face. “Let’s go home.”

Tsukishima follows him, still sorting through the day in his mind, and is unsurprised when they both wind up at Yamaguchi’s.

They’re not children anymore. He should go home. His _own_ home. But Yamaguchi’s settling him on the couch already and racing to the kitchen, rattling pots around, and returning with a blanket and some stupid Disney movie they’ve both seen a thousand times, and Tsukishima just gathers the blanket around himself and doesn’t move.

A few minutes more, and Yamaguchi returns with two mugs full of cocoa. He hands the gray one to Tsukishima and places the bag of little pastel marshmallows beside the couch.

There’s twelve little marshmallows in Tsukishima’s mug already, and he lifts it and drinks.

“Tsukki, blow on it first,” Yamaguchi says, smiling. “You’ll burn your tongue.”

Tsukishima just cups his hands around the mug and blows, watching the steam swirl around. He’s pretty sure he’s already scalded his tongue, but whatever.

“Here,” Yamaguchi says, offering him something. Tsukishima takes it, confused; it’s a ticket for the big stage in town.

“So you can watch,” Yamaguchi says, twirling a piece of hair around his finger. “If you want.” He leaves it there, doesn’t give Tsukishima a chance to respond, just puts in the Disney movie and pushes Play.

He’s asleep before the halfway point, snoring away on Tsukishima’s shoulder. Tsukishima tugs the blanket around him, and then looks at the ticket and the neatly printed time and date on it.

_Do I want to?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next (and last) chapter probably Saturday! I need to look over the ending and make sure I don't hate it. :D Thank you for reading, and also, pls talk to me, I live for comments.


	2. Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He /did/ say he wasn't a skater.

He skips practice.

Daichi and Sugawara will murder him later; unlike Yamaguchi, he’s _a starting member_ and expected to come to practice if he’s not actually dying.

He doesn’t care.

He’s never been to the town stage, hasn’t had a reason to; he knows Karasuno sometimes puts on school productions there, but he’s never attended one. It’s easy enough to find, and Tsukishima tugs at his collar (he’s dressed up in a proper collared shirt and slacks that fit _perfectly_ ten centimeters ago) as he goes in and shows his ticket to the usher, slightly embarrassed to admit that he has absolutely no idea where he’s supposed to sit.

“Ah, you’re family?” she asks, beaming at him. “Just down there, in the center. There’s a few rows of reserved seats; you should spot yours easily.”

Tsukishima stands perfectly still.

_Family?_

“Excuse me, sir, if you could find your seat,” and Tsukishima realizes he’s holding up the line and walks off with a mumbled apology.

“Tsukishima-kun!” Tsukishima’s head snaps up; a woman with bright orange hair and Yamaguchi’s freckles waves to him. “Over here!”

Tsukishima lifts his hand in a wave back and slips into the row, taking his seat next to the two he vaguely recognizes as Yamaguchi’s parents. His mother is cheerful, orange-haired and blue-eyed with hair that has officially usurped Hinata’s for the title of Most Unlikely Hairstyle, and his father is quieter, with the same shaggy green hair (Tsukishima is almost sure that they both cut it with a lawn mower while blindfolded) as Yamaguchi.

“Tadashi wasn’t sure you’d make it,” Yamaguchi’s mother says, smiling. What’s her name, again?

“I wouldn’t miss it, Yamaguchi-san.” He always forgets Yamaguchi’s first name, too. As far as Tsukishima’s concerned, Yamaguchi _is_ his name. Just like ‘Tsukki’ is Yamaguchi’s name for him. He probably wouldn’t even realize Yamaguchi was talking to him if he ever used ‘Kei’. Or ‘Tsukishima’.

“Ahiru, please,” _oh,_ right, he has no idea how he always manages to forget her name when she wears a duck-tail tucked into a bun.

“I’m sure you’ll be happy when this is over,” Yamaguchi’s father says. “Tadashi’s always talking about how difficult it is to balance this and volleyball. He says your captains are understanding.”

Tsukishima hasn’t even noticed when Yamaguchi’s skipped practice.

Or, he has, because without Yamaguchi they have an odd number and he has to warm up by himself, but he’s never actually asked where Yamaguchi _was._

“They are,” he manages. “They know we have to miss, sometimes…except for the shrimp. He’d kill himself practicing if our captains let him.”

“My ears are burning,” Suga says, slipping past Tsukishima and sitting down. “Hello, Ahiru-san, Fakir-san. I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Oh, it hasn’t started,” Ahiru says, smiling. “You’re Sugawara-san?”

Tsukishima looks between Suga and Ahiru in complete bewilderment.

“Pleased to meet you properly,” Suga says, inclining his head. “I’m afraid Daichi can’t make it; he’s running practice…” The smile turns into a grin that Tsukishima associates with Nishinoya and Tanaka more than Sugawara. “…and swearing a blue streak about his three missing players, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Fakir stifles a laugh in his shirt, which only encourages Suga’s grin. “Tsukishima, I didn’t think you’d be here.”

Right.

Of course Yamaguchi has other friends on the team, and of course he’d invite them. He’s not Tsukishima; he doesn’t actively _try_ to make people stay away.

“Yamaguchi invited me,” Tsukishima says flatly, and then the lights dim and the noise level drops from ‘cafeteria chatter’ to ‘pin drop’ in ten seconds flat. _I wonder if I could find a switch like that on the shrimp._

The music that starts up seems vaguely familiar, some classical piece or other, and Tsukishima remembers that he still hasn’t found out what this actually _is._

He figures it out very quickly when Yamaguchi comes onstage and starts dancing.

His hair’s been combed under a wig, he’s dressed in stage clothes, and his freckles have mostly been covered with makeup, but Tsukishima could recognize his eyes and his smile kilometers away. He dances by himself, sometimes, and sometimes with a girl in a white tutu who’s even smaller than Yachi.

And he’s _good._ He can literally lift the girl dancer off the ground without apparent effort, and he moves around the stage with a grace that more than once makes Tsukishima blink hard to be _sure_ he’s watching the right dancer. There’s no trace of nerves; his face is set and focused, and he dances with none of the hesitation Tsukishima’s learned to expect when it’s his serve (or his receive, or his _anything_ involving volleyball).

He smiles at the girl, a wide laughing grin that Tsukishima sees so rarely, as they twirl around each other, and okay, he’s a little away from the stage, but Tsukishima is _sure_ he’s giving the girl soppy Yamaguchi puppy eyes when the dance spins them particularly close together.

Sugawara, at intermission, reaches over and closes his mouth for him with his usual gentle Good Upperclassman Smile. Tsukishima stays in his seat, frozen stiff, until the curtain rises and it begins again.

He’s not sure exactly what happens in the ending. It seems to be a fairytale-Disney sort of thing. The girl comes back in a long white skirt, they twirl around each other a few times, and the curtain falls with them in each other’s arms. Tsukishima claps with everyone else, and the applause barely has time to die down before the dancers come out for their bow.

Yamaguchi’s last, running out hand-in-hand with Tutu Girl and beaming at the round of thunderous clapping. Tsukishima stands a beat after Sugawara and Yamaguchi’s parents, and he swears he sees Yamaguchi’s eyes sweeping over the audience.

Tsukishima’s not sure, but he thinks Yamaguchi might be looking for him. If he finds him, Tsukishima can’t tell. His smile doesn’t change as he steps back into the line of dancers, joins hands with them, and bows at the same time as everyone else, prompting a round of _more_ applause.

“Excuse me,” Tsukishima says, as soon as the curtain falls again, and walks toward the door, ignoring Sugawara’s yell after him.

A hand catches his wrist, and he pulls at it before turning his best disdainful glare on the boy holding it. “ _What is it, Sugawara-san.”_

“He won’t be out for a while,” Suga says. “He’s probably doing the stage door with the rest of the cast.”

“The what.”

“It’s a side door.” Suga lets go of his wrist, but Tsukishima doesn’t leave. “People wait outside with their programs to get them autographed. It’s a bigger deal at larger productions, but I did see some people heading that way. And he has to change out of his costume. Just wait for him.”

Somehow, it’s not surprising that Suga knows about all this. Tsukishima walks out, hearing Suga’s footsteps behind him, and pulls his headphones out of his bag, snapping them onto his head once he’s outside. He’s _sure_ he hears Suga sigh before the footsteps go away.

Tsukishima closes his eyes and waits.

“Tsukki?”

That didn’t take long.

Tsukishima opens his eyes; Yamaguchi’s looking up at him, back in clothes that are weirdly casual, for him…

( _because you never see him in anything but his uniform_ )

…but at least an improvement over the spandex and puffy blue jacket. His hair looks almost like Hinata’s, sticking up oddly from the hastily-removed wig cap, and there’s still traces of stage makeup on his face.

“Yamaguchi.” It’s as neutral as Tsukishima can make it. “I thought you’d be in there longer.”

“I skipped stage door,” Yamaguchi says. He leans against the wall, next to Tsukishima. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

 _You and everyone else._ Tsukishima bites back the sarcastic comment. “You did invite me.”

“I did,” Yamaguchi agrees.

“How are you so clumsy on the court?” He didn’t mean to ask that quite as bluntly as he did, but too late, it’s out. Yamaguchi lets out a surprised laugh.

“The same reason you can’t play basketball?” he asks. “The way you move is different.”

They do _not_ talk about Tsukishima’s efforts to play basketball in P.E. class (he is excellent at stopping people from shooting into their hoop and utterly useless at anything involving actually handling the ball). “How long?”

“Since before I met you,” Yamaguchi responds easily. “Mom and Dad are both dancers, so I started really young.”

Tsukishima blinks at him. “…Then why do you play volleyball?”

Yamaguchi’s head tilts. “Eh?”

“You’re _good,”_ Tsukishima says, gesturing at him. “Why would you work so hard at something that you knew you didn’t have any talent for when you already had this?”

Yamaguchi frowns. “Tsukki, I can do more than one thing at a time.” His tone’s mildly reproachful, _obviously, Tsukki._ “I love dancing, but I love volleyball, too.” He gives Tsukishima a little half-smirk. “And seeing the look on the other team’s faces when my serve goes in the wrong direction is pretty cool.”

He is a terrible influence on Yamaguchi.

“Are you okay?” Yamaguchi asks, looking sideways (up) at him.

Is he?

Yamaguchi’s a dancer, Yamaguchi’s a pinch server, Yamaguchi’s grades are better than his ( _in one subject_ ).

Yamaguchi, Tsukishima realizes, is no longer the little bullied kid he unintentionally rescued in their last year of elementary school, and no longer the short middle-schooler who trailed behind him wherever he went whether he liked it or not. Sometime when he wasn’t looking, Yamaguchi grew up.

He’d sort of gotten that, after Yamaguchi had shouted him down at training camp, but it’s _really_ being driven home right now.

“If you have anything else you need to say,” Tsukishima says, when the silence starts getting oppressive, “now would be a good time.”

Yamaguchi looks thoughtfully at the stars. “I’ve been in love with you since I met you,” he offers quietly.

“I thought it was that girl in the white tutu.” That’s probably not her name, and Tsukishima can’t stop the dismissive tone in his voice.

Yamaguchi actually laughs. “Pike-san? Tsukki, she’s my mother’s age.”

Oh.

“ _Swan Lake_ is a love story,” Yamaguchi says. “We’re _supposed_ to do that onstage. It’s just an act.”

_Oh._

Okay, so he’d known it was a love story, he isn’t _that_ dense, but also, Yamaguchi genuinely looked happy up on stage with the tiny girl in a tutu, much happier than he ever looks around Tsukishima, and he’s now convinced being around the shrimp is bad for his grammar, this little line of thought has gone on so long it’s probably three sentences all by itself.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, putting one hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

Tsukishima jolts (Yamaguchi usually doesn’t interrupt him during the rare moments when he genuinely can’t think of anything to say).

“I’ve known you don’t feel the same way for almost as long.” Yamaguchi has the gentle smile again, the not-Tsukki one, the one he uses when he thinks he has to take care of Tsukishima. “It’s okay.”

He actually has _absolutely no idea_ how he feels about Yamaguchi.

…Largely because until a few weeks ago, he hadn’t really _noticed_ Yamaguchi.

And until about two days ago, he hadn’t thought of Yamaguchi as a person, with a life, that does not necessarily center around high school volleyball.

 _I’m almost as focused on this damned sport as the King and the shrimp are._ There’s a horrifying thought.

“Want to go home?” Yamaguchi asks, circling Tsukishima’s wrist and gently pulling him toward the parking lot. “We’ve still got practice tomorrow.”

Tsukishima just nods and lets Yamaguchi tow him toward their ridiculous little car that he barely fits in when he scrunches his knees and bends forward. Yamaguchi’s parents don’t even blink when they see him, like they expected this. Ahiru spends the drive talking about the show, with an occasional comment from Fakir.

They pull into Yamaguchi’s house twenty minutes of chatter about nothing later. Tsukishima considers it a minor miracle that he gets out of the car without hurting himself. Yamaguchi’s messing around in the kitchen already; he brings ‘their’ mugs (an old one with a crescent moon Tsukishima sort of forgot to take home one day that pretty much belongs to Yamaguchi’s family now for him and a shrine gate for Yamaguchi) out and gives Tsukishima his.

“Do you want a movie?” Yamaguchi asks, setting his own mug down on the floor next to the couch.

“I think,” Tsukishima says, cupping his hands around his mug, “I’d prefer to just sit here for a while.”

“Fine with me,” Yamaguchi says, yawning and climbing up to sit next to him.

Even without the movie, Tsukishima still has to untangle Yamaguchi’s hands from his drink when he falls asleep (which requires coordination, absolutely perfect timing, and moving as little as possible so he doesn’t jolt Yamaguchi’s head off his shoulder) fifteen minutes later.

Tsukishima closes his eyes, placing his mug down (another ridiculously slow and carefully timed motion), and looks at Yamaguchi’s dance shoes, sitting on the chair across the room.

_Sorry, Yamaguchi._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo I watched Princess Tutu and Yuri on Ice and Haikyuu!! at roughly the same time and this giant mess of headcanon is what came out. It's a lot of what-if, and I hope it all feels in character. Tsukishima's difficult for me to write when he's not being an ass, and Yamaguchi is kind of generally tricky. Thanks for reading! Talk to me! :D


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